"Hello, good morning, how'm I doin'? Ain't I great? Anybody who's not me, SAD!!! "This is your pilot, Captain Donnie, welcoming you on board Schtrump Airways flight 666 -- got it? 666, sign of divinity, just so you know -- from here to anywhere I want to go. "And speaking of pilots, did you know…Read more Captain Donnie, One-Way Pilot to Nowhere…

MONTIGNAC, France -- Pixar, eat your heart out. Cro-Magnon artists 20,000 years ago painted a picture of a snorting horse whose head seems to move upwards on the wall of the Lascaux cave in southwest France. That, at least, is the illusion visitors have when they see the meticulous reproductions of the famous Lascaux cave…Read more En Route: Lascaux 4 — a high-tech trip back in time

BUDAPEST - Swedish soprano Irene Theorin was beaming backstage after she'd burned down the Valhalla home of the gods at the end of Wagner's "Gotterdammerung", and brought some five hours of singing over three nights in Budapest to a glorious conclusion. "I've now done this brilliant part many times but never in my life in…Read more Is the Budapest “Ring” Going Up in Flames?

To contemplate, or possibly scream, while watching TV news in the age of Trump: "He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career." - George Bernard Shaw "He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot."…Read more Insults in the age of Trump

TULSK, Ireland - Finding pieces of wood mixed in with turf in an Irish peat bog is nothing unusual. Recognising those rods as part of a trap that prehistoric man used to impale deer in 1,200 BC requires someone with skill and know-how. One such person is Christy Lawless, 70, an amateur archaeologist from County…Read more Preserving Ireland’s past – for the love of it

Soprano Claudia Boyle's voice soaring into the stratosphere singing the word “down” as she plunged into the rabbit hole in Irish composer Gerald Barry's “Alice's Adventures Under Ground” was thrilling but was only one of many highlights of the New Music Dublin 2017 festival. From Thursday, March 2, through Saturday, Dublin's National Concert Hall banished…Read more Barry, Ades and “Alice” in tune at Dublin music fest…

Irish professional photographer Nigel Swann says one of the most telling details of his photograph of one of the “Yellow Star Houses” of Budapest didn't hit him until he examined it later – the name “Jakab” spray-painted on the apartment block's front door. “It just jumped out at me and there was this 'Jakab' graffiti…Read more “Never forget” — the Yellow Star Houses of Budapest…